News

R. Ferguson, E. Crist, & Dr. K. Moffatt of the School of Information Studies win award for paper on technologies and comfort in hospice

Published: 13 December 2013

Robert Ferguson, Emily Crist, and Dr. Karyn Moffatt of the McGill School of Information Studies (SIS), along with Michael Massimi of Microsoft Research, received an ACM Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) 2014 Best Paper Award for their paper, "Craving, Creating, and Constructing Comfort: Insights and Opportunities for Technology in Hospice." The paper will appear at the Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2014) Conference February 15-19 in Baltimore, Maryland. Congratulations!

Abstract

"Hospice is a medical setting for patients with terminal illnesses where active treatment is withdrawn in favor of providing comfort and dignity at the end of life. Providing comfort extends beyond managing physical pain to include social, emotional, spiritual, and environmental aspects of care. We studied technology's role in achieving these multifaceted dimensions of comfort through interviews with 16 family members of past hospice patients. Comfort was an ongoing pursuit, requiring the involvement of diverse stakeholders; communication technologies were selectively chosen in service of this achievement. We provide opportunities and recommendations for technologies in hospice, including the need for varying degrees of richness and symmetry, and for support for life-affirming acts. To our knowledge, this constitutes the first study, in the CSCW and HCI literatures, of communication technology use during the final days of a person's life, with implications both for hospice and for the end of life more broadly."

Read the full paper here

 

About CSCW

The Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) is the premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. Bringing together top researchers and practitioners from academia and industry in the area of social computing, CSCW encompasses both the technical and social challenges encountered when supporting collaboration.

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